Princess Daisy (53 page)

There was still a minute to spare, and Daisy went to her own office to make a final check before the mirror. All seemed to be in order. She had managed to make herself nearly invisible. Her hair had been gathered ruthlessly into one thick plait that she hid by tucking it into the roomy neck of her white work shirt and letting it hang down her back. Over the shirt she had a deliberately baggy pair of white carpenter’s overalls and she had pulled a white canvas sailor hat well down over her forehead so that it effectively hid her eyes. She was satisfied that against the white bricks of the conference room, she would fade into the background.

There had been no possible way for Daisy to avoid being at the meeting, but at least she felt reasonably certain that Patrick Shannon could not possibly spot her as the woman he had met at the Shorts’ dinner party in Middleburg, a woman who had, in a way that must have seemed malicious, made him very angry, so angry that she was concerned that her mere presence might add considerably to the high tempers she knew everyone else was bringing to the studio today.

Now the sound of the rising elevator told Daisy that the meeting was about to begin. Luke Hammerstein, accompanied
by five of his subordinates, was the first to arrive. Daisy stood to one side as the room started to fill up. North had excused nobody from today’s summit conference and Arnie Greene, Nick-the-Greek, Hubie Troy, Wingo Sparks, Daisy’s two assistants and Alix Updike were all there. Full-dress parade today, Daisy thought as she saw a perfect place for her to sit—in the lee of Nick, whose peacock figure was clad in a particularly lively glen plaid. Every eye, she judged, would stop at Nick and, wildly wondering, go no farther.

Precisely on time Patrick Shannon entered, followed by five people whom he introduced quickly: Hilly Bijur, president of the Elstree Division of Supracorp, Jared Turner, head of marketing, Candice Bloom, head of publicity for Elstree, Helen Strauss, head of advertising, and Patsy Jacobson, product-line manager.

In the time it took for them to all find chairs, Daisy was able to peek out from her strategic position and briefly study Patrick Shannon, who had seated himself without hesitation at the opposite end of the table from North. It was the first time she had seen North with a man who was clearly his equal. She could feel, even without looking, how Shannon dominated the room. Everyone, no matter how they were placed, seemed to be leaning toward him as if he were a magnet Perhaps it was the weight of all their ears cocked in his direction that gave her that impression, she thought, restraining a giggle at the absurdity of this whole solemn occasion. Shannon’s appearance in the room was so unnecessary that she couldn’t believe that Luke and North had taken it all so seriously … and with such vehemence. If that pompous man wanted to get the impression that he was doing something “creative” about his company’s commercials, why not humor him, she wondered. He was no different from all the other people who employed North. Invariably, on a shoot, they asked to look into the viewfinder of the camera before a take. North always let them go ahead—once—although they didn’t know what they were seeing or what it would mean on film, and all they ever did was nod wisely and approve of whatever he had been planning to do in the first place.

Still … Shannon
had
entered the room with the firm, possessive step of a ship’s captain strolling on his own deck, a ship, Daisy suspected, that would raise a flag bearing a skull and crossbones just as soon as it was safely out to sea. He was a pirate, a rumple-haired, blue-eyed,
Black Irish brigand, improbably disguised as a prince of industry.

The meeting opened as Luke rose to his feet. He was privately, but thoroughly, annoyed at having to recapitulate the story of work that had already been through weeks of discussion, work that had been finalized, but Shannon had phoned him and asked him to fill everyone in on the entire picture at the start of the conference.

In a voice that brought them all to immediate attention, Luke began abruptly. One of the requirements of all the jobs he’d had in the past, which had led to his present position, had been the ability to “talk” a commercial so dramatically that you could see it without pictures.

“Elstree suffers from an image problem. Fuddy-duddy, old-world, your grandma’s favorite. We knew that was the trouble going in. Last year another agency took off on a losing basis, using the purity of the ingredients as their main selling point. It didn’t work—that’s why Elstree changed to our agency. Purity isn’t enough in a world in which there are a number of lines of cosmetics making similar claims with as much justification.” He paused and checked his audience. They were all listening intently.

“Faded gentility and purity are
out!
We are going to capture today’s most lucrative market: the working woman—dynamic, adventurous and
with her own paycheck.
” Luke picked up a large, glossy blow-up of a girl’s face and displayed it to the listening crowd. “This is Pat Stephens, the new Elstree girl. The commercials will present her in a number of situations that have never been done before in the cosmetics-fragrance field … she’ll be doing aerobatics in a small plane, we’ll see her weightless, in a pressurized chamber taking training for space flight and racing in the Indy 500 in a special car G.M. is making for us. Pat will always wear some sort of uniform and a helmet. In the last thirteen seconds of each commercial, as she talks Elstree, shell fling off her helmet and we’ll finally see her face, conveying a tremendous impression of vitality and strength—driving, exciting, dashing and above all,
young
—not just the woman of today but also the woman of
tomorrow.
”

Daisy contemplated the blow-up as objectively as possible. The girl was splendidly clean-featured, but her sleekly cropped head and screechingly All-American look rendered her devoid of nuance, Daisy thought. Teeth and cheekbones she had in abundance … but appeal?

“We intend to sign Pat up for two years so that no one
else will be able to use her,” Luke continued. “She’ll become the living symbol of the utter now-ness of Elstree. Within months, maybe less, everyone will forget that Elstree has been in business for a hundred years because they’ll associate it with Pat Stephens, functioning confidently in the present and on into the future.”

He sat down to a round of applause led by Nick, who had received his instructions before the meeting. Then silence fell.

Patrick Shannon nodded in the direction of the people from Supracorp. “Ladies, Hilly, Jared—and the rest of you—first of all I want to apologize for butting in here. I know it’s irregular to have this mass meeting with everyone involved but I’ve no time to go through channels and no time to spare anybody’s feelings. As you know, although Mr. Hammerstein and Mr. North may not, I’ve been away for months, off and on, and I have to leave for Tokyo today.” He waited, pausing just long enough to receive the expected nods from the men and women whose positions he was preempting.

“When I got back to the office a few days ago I found this campaign on my desk, ready to go. It was the first time I’d seen a photo of the Elstree girl.”

“We were waiting for Danillo to photograph her with her new haircut, and he took longer than expected,” Helen Strauss explained quickly.

Shannon slammed his hand down on the huge blow-up. “She looks like a tight end for the Dallas Cowboys.” Nervous laughter greeted his remark. Sponsors were entitled to a sense of humor.

“It’s not funny, ladies and gentlemen. I’m not joking. She’s a good-looking kid, but unfortunately you picked a jock. This campaign can’t work.” The sound of shock, an absence of breathing or moving, filled the conference room. Shannon continued evenly.

“I’m sure I don’t have to emphasize that Elstree lost thirty million dollars last year—it’s the talk of the fragrance industry. My competitors dine out on it I’m going to spend many millions more to turn the company around—-launching a new fragrance, new packaging, a new advertising campaign. Big as Supracorp is, Elstree cannot afford to lose any more money because my stockholders will not—I repeat, will not—understand. They have a hell of a lot less patience than I do.”

Shannon paused, but no one in the room showed any
inclination toward speech. He picked up the blow-up of Pat Stephens and held it up. “This girl and Mr. Hammerstein’s campaign will certainly
change
Elstree’s image, but they will not sell, and I repeat the word
sell
, cosmetics or fragrance. I simply don’t believe that women will identify themselves with this girl or the situations you plan to put her in. It must have sounded original and fresh when you all decided on it, but do you think it remotely
believable
that this tough cookie would be using blusher and mascara under all those helmets? I’m damn sure that she wouldn’t be wearing perfume inside that space capsule or whatever the hell it is.” Shannon let the glossy fall to the floor before he went on. “I think that the time has come to return to a romantic sell in fragrance, a classy, feminine sell. The working woman hasn’t become any less womanly because she earns money. This tomboy you want to sign for the Elstree girl may well be somebody’s fantasy of today’s woman, but, sorry gentlemen, she’s not mine.”

Luke finally had to protest. “Look at the Charlie campaign, Mr. Shannon,” he said calmly. “It’s been a fabulous success for Revlon and their entire selling point is that girl with her extra-long legs taking huge strides all over the world—clean-cut, not especially pretty, but putting over that to-hell-with-everything-folks-I-can-take-care-of-myself image.”

“That’s one of my objections, Mr. Hammerstein,” Patrick Shannon countered. “Charlie is three years old now—soon that campaign will be dated. And I don’t intend to imitate Charlie … not even Charlie in the year two thousand.” His wide mouth tightened in a way his employees knew well.

“Pat …” Helen Strauss began. Advertising, after all, was her responsibility, or, at least, it was
supposed
to be.

“No, Helen, I don’t buy this campaign. Not any of it.”

“Did you have something else in mind, Mr. Shannon?” North asked with politeness. His face quivered with impatience at the whole windy proceedings, but he knew he wasn’t nearly as disturbed as the agency and the Supracorp people. He only had to make the commercials, not create them.

“I don’t throw things out unless I have a notion of how to replace them, Mr. North,” Shannon said. He took off the jacket of his suit, rolled up his shirt sleeves with deliberation and stretched; a big man thoroughly at ease in
a roomful of people who had just seen months of carefully made plans laid waste. Daisy heard Nick-the-Greek whispering, “Shee-it” in admiration. She could almost feel him wondering if he should stop wearing the vests he adored.

“I’ve done a little homework since I first saw this photo,” Shannon continued. “The natural look is still the most important one; the natural-looking blonde is still the model who will sell more than the brunette. I want you to find me a natural blonde and put her in natural situations. I want her to have class, warmth and a kind of glow that seems achievable. I want a real woman, not just the Elstree Girl—but someone who will become known by her own name. If Candy Bergen weren’t already committed to work for Shulton and that new fragrance of theirs, I’d say she’s the girl for us, but it’s too late to get her now.”

“You mean you’re looking for a celebrity endorsement?” Luke asked, keeping the incredulity out of his voice. It just might be the oldest idea in advertising. They had actually used it in the days of Queen Victoria, for Christ’s sake.

“Why the hell not? Remember ‘She’s engaged, she’s lovely, she uses Ponds’? Nothing basic has changed since then, Mr. Hammerstein. Nothing in human nature. I didn’t promise to be original—just different.” Shannon grinned, with a larky bandit’s look in his eyes, that freebooter gleam that told everyone from Supracorp that his mind was made up.

For a few seconds Luke was stunned into silence as he pictured his wonderful girl of the future being watered down into a simpering deb with white satin draped around her privileged shoulders, selling drugstore cold cream to the masses. His voice stayed reasonable but it demanded an effort. “Don’t you think that there’s a danger in an approach that might be perceived as snobbish—and outmoded?”

“I’m not talking debutantes, Hammerstein—Ponds was merely an example. I’m talking
star
. People still love stars, today more than ever. I want you to make a star or find a star to be the Elstree Girl. Just remember—she
cannot
be one of the boys.”

Until this minute, Hilly Bijur had refrained from interrupting, although he was president of Elstree. Let Helen Strauss take the heat. But now he sought to regain the control he had lost by Patrick Shannon’s intervention.

“You’re on the money about natural blondes,” he said to
his boss, overriding Luke who was about to speak. “I managed to sneak a look at the new, top-secret Clairol report that says the trend toward blondes is hotter than ever—not the streaked blonde but the total blonde, the blonder-than-ever blonde.”

Luke and North looked at each other in disgust. The meeting was being taken over by report-quoting, image-crazy civilians, and there wasn’t a damn thing they could do about it. Nick-the-Greek sat squirming in frustration in his seat. Everybody was putting his two cents in and he hadn’t said a word yet He didn’t like being ignored. Since North had insisted that he come to this asshole hassle, he was going to add something to it. In spite of his tailored-to-the-eyeballs exterior, Nick had never abandoned one habit that he’d learned in his childhood in Spanish Harlem. In each of his startling suits there was a special pocket in which he always kept a sharp knife which, had he cared to give it its precise name, was a switchblade. It kept him from feeling nervous. Now he reached for his dangerous security blanket and quietly snapped it open. All this pissant talk about blondes … they wanted blonde, they’d get blonde—from Nick-the-Greek.

In one fast movement, he turned his powerful body, snatched off Daisy’s sailor cap, pulled her braid out from its hiding place and cut the ribbon which bound it so tightly. Before she could move, using both hands he rapidly unplaited the braid until her masses of hair were firmly held in his hands. Daisy struggled and gasped in disbelief, but he’d moved so quickly that she wasn’t even sure of what was happening. Nick stood up, bringing Daisy with him since he had grabbed her by every hair on her head, and said loudly, “This what you mean, Mr. Shannon?” He waved Daisy’s hair triumphantly, as if he were raising the flag on Iwo Jima.